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Dear Parents, Carers and Children,

Happy Christmas!

What an exciting term we have had, from Design week to Nativities and wonderful performances from choir and the performing arts club. Across the school the children have been working hard in all areas of the curriculum and have produced some wonderful work in many different forms.

I am sure you will all join with me in thanking the PTA for their wonderful efforts on behalf of the children and families at the school and thank you to you all for supporting the events they have laid on. Please see the letter from the PTA for a more detailed account of the events and plans for the money raised.

Thank you all for your considerations with parking as we work together to ensure the safety of all the children at the school. Please remember our neighbours in the New Year, not parking in front of drive ways and being mindful of those within our community who are disabled and need to drop off closer to the school gates. Remember the car park at the side of the school is free until 9am every morning and is only a minute or two walk away from the entrance.

I am sure that like us, you are all looking forward to the festive season, enjoying time with family and friends and I wish you all the salutations of the season. May you have the gift of faith, the blessing of hope and the peace of his love at Christmas and always.

MESSAGE FROM OUR HEAD OF SCHOOL, MRS RHODES Inside this issue

Message from Mrs Rhodes 1

Sports report 2

Safeguarding 2

Messages from the office 3

School Association 4

Christmas dinner day 5

Christmas fair 5

Ambassadors 6

Elizabeth Legatt Foundation 6

Attendance 7

Chocolate day 7

French update 8

Choir update 8

Class updates 9

Term dates 13

OCTOBER 2016

Autumn Newsletter 2December 2018

“And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him.”

1 John 4.9

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SPORT AT ELTHAMDODGEBALL

Six pupils from Year 4 took part in the Dodgeball Event at Plumstead Manor School on Thursday 29th November.

Despite having very little experience in this game all the children played extremely well and demonstrated brilliant sportsmanship. The team played eight games in total, winning four of them.

George and Thomas received special certificates for Great Team Spirit.

The children were accompanied by Mrs Leung and Mrs Wilkes and both reported back that the children were amazing and tried their very best.

SAFEGUARDING

VIDEO GAMESIn this half term’s newsletter, we would like to take the opportunity to remind our parents and guardians to ensure that children are playing appropriate video games and that children are aware of how to stay safe when playing games which have live chat facilities.

Unfortunately, we are beginning to notice some negative effects of gaming particularly from the popular ‘Fortnite’ game. Some children are responding to the interactions they have while playing this game (during the evenings and weekend) within the school day. This has led to some antagonistic behaviour and disagreements between children. Increasingly, staff are spending time resolving issues rather than focusing on their core responsibilities.

This game is classified as 12 rated by the Pan European Game Information Board; please consider whether it is appropriate for your child to be playing if they are under 12 years of age. Please also reinforce with your children the importance of taking regular breaks from gaming, never sharing personal information online and knowing how to use the block or mute tools if someone is being aggressive or inappropriate in a game. We will of course reinforce this during ‘Internet Safety’ sessions in school but appreciate your support at home to help us work together.

More information about this game and what you can do to keep your children safe can be found at https://www.childnet.com/young-people/secondary/hot-topics/gaming or https://www.saferinternet.org.uk/blog/parents-guide-fortnite-battle-

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MESSAGES FROM THE OFFICE

PARENTMAIL

The school office uses Parentmail to communicate with our parents and carers. We email the newsletter as well as send information about upcoming events at the school. On the rare occassion where we have to cancel a club, we will send a text message to parents to inform them.

As a one off, we have decided to print the newsletter and send a copy home with each child. We have done this as we know there are some parents and carers who are not registered on Parentmail and do not receive our communications.

If you do not receive emails from us via Parentmail or have problems with with the service please contact the school office so that we can try to resolve any issues you may have.

It is important we have the correct information, email and mobile number, so we can register you on Parentmail.

SCHOOL DINNER

Please remember to let the school office know if your child is changing from packed lunch to school dinners or vice-versa.

Dinner money for next term is £70.20. This is payable in advance via SIMS AGORA.

IMPORTANT DATES

The last day of term is Friday 21st December and the children return to school on Monday 7th January 2019.

The next staff INSET date is Friday 1st February 2019 where the school will be closed to pupils.

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PTA UPDATE

Dear Parents and carers,

As the year draws to a close and we all wonder how Christmas could be so soon, we would like to take this opportunity to update you on our projects and fundraising efforts.

Since September 2018, we have been busy organising many different events; the Macmillan Coffee Morning, school disco, film night, Coffee Morning for Nursery’s nativity play and finally two Christmas events in December (Christmas Secret Shop and Christmas Fair).

This school year, thanks to your support, the PTA has raised a total of £5,100 so far!

For now, we have funded the Christmas Pantomime and we are continuing to work towards funding the replacement of Key Stage 1’s playground equipment.

As you may all have noticed, the equipment in KS1’s playground needs to be replaced. It is a legacy from the old school (from the Reception’s playground) that had been relocated to the new playground. Unfortunately, it has now been deemed as unsafe for the children to use. This is why the school and the PTA are working towards its replacement as soon as possible. Hopefully we will reach this goal early next year with your support.

We also have other projects we would like to fund over the next few months. We look forward to sharing these with you in the near future!

Upcoming Events

As the New Year starts, we have a series of fun events planned for everyone to enjoy. Please note in your calendar the upcoming events:

• Quiz Night – Friday 25th January 2019 – Details to come soon

• Film night – Friday 8th February

• School Disco – date tbc

• Summer Fair – Saturday 29th June 2019

Thank You for all your donations, time and help over the last few months. If it wasn’t for your support and generosity none of this would have been possible. We look forward to working with you all to raise more funds for our children’s school journey in 2019.

Many thanks and we wish you a Merry Christmas from all of the PTA

Note: Please remember the PTA when you are clearing out after Christmas, we would love outgrown Christmas jumpers, toys, uniform and any unwanted new gifts.

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The children and staff had great fun on Christmas dinner day.

CHRISTMAS DINNER DAY

CHRISTMAS FAIR

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YEAR 6 AMBASSADORS

ELIZABETH LEGATT FOUNDATION

AMBASSADORSOur ambassadors for this year have been working very hard to ensure Eltham is a safe and friendly place for all. Thank you to Lemuel, Elizabeth, Iman, Maisie, Varun, Isabella, Iris, Emily, Ellie, Lucy.

FUNDING FOR BOOKSDuring this year we have been the fortunate recipient of a donation for £1714.63 from the Elizabeth Legatt Foundation for books.

Mrs Bailey composed a wish list for each year group which was approved by the trustees of the society. These books have now been bought and distributed to classes with labels explain a little about the Foundation.

Trustees from the Foundation also came and spoke to the children in an assembly.

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At Eltham Church of England Primary School we continue to promote and celebrate good attendance and punctuality.

Not only is good attendance beneficial to pupils’ achievements it is also an excellent ‘life skill’.

We also use the Royal Borough of Greenwich’s Attendance Advisory Service to monitor and support our management of pupil attendance.

Under Fast Track, families will be informed when their child’s attendance has crossed the threshold even when all absences have been correctly documented and understood. If a child’s attendance continues to decline and gives the Attendance Advisory Officer a cause for concern, then a meeting between the school, the parents and the advisory service is convened.

The school’s target is to ensure that whole school attendance is consistently above 97% and better still above 97.5%

Can we remind parents that all absences need to be supported with a written letter outlining the reason for the absence as soon as your child returns to school.

Also, that all holiday will be recorded as unauthorised, however a child’s overall attendance will be taken into account when consideration is given to the Fast Track procedures.

ATTENDANCE FOR AUTUM TERM 2 Class Attendance since September 2018

Corbett 97.7

North 95.9

Bek 96.3

Mills 95.2

Archery 95.5

Tarn 97.1

Sherard 96.1

Shaw-Brooke 98.1

Nesbit 95.5

Gregory 96.7

Chaucer 96.6

WG Grace 95.2

Roper 96.3

Avery 96.6

TOTAL 96.3

YEAR 3 CHOCOLATE DAY

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FRENCHThere have been lots of fun activities in French this term. During Design Week, all French classes learnt about the Montgolfier brothers, who are credited with designing the first manned hot air balloon and created some beautiful designs.

Year 6 created menus and practised ordering food in a café in class before putting their new language skills to the test at the Christmas Market in Arras. It was wonderful to see them conversing in a real setting.

Thanks to Mrs Hayes and Miss Sinha, year 3 children made some amazing Christmas cards and included information about their Christmas traditions. Their cards were then sent to different European destinations. So far, the children have received cards back from schools in Romania, Lithuania, Italy, Northern Ireland, the Czech Republic, Poland, Greece and a school in the North of England.

French homework is available to year 5 and 6 children on a weekly basis from the French display board by their classrooms. Please remind children to log on to Linguascope to play games whilst learning new French words. The username is elthamps and the children have been told the password.

Joyeux Noël at Bonne Année!

Madame Edwards

WHAT’S NEW FROM FRENCH

CHOIR UPDATEWith around 60 children from years 4-6 coming regularly to choir practise at lunchtimes, we have been working very hard to include harmonies in our Christmas songs.

The choir has been in high demand to perform in and out of school and their performance at the Christmas Fair was an absolute highlight.

Look out for Silent Night sung in English, German, French and Italian at the Christmas Carol Service at St John’s on Wednesday 19th December at 6pm and at Passey Place on Thursday 20th at 11am.

Well done to all the children for their commitment.

Mrs Edwards

WHAT’S NEW FROM THE CHOIR

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NATIVITYThis half term we have had a lovely time practising for our Nativity. Thank you all for your support and kind words. The children thoroughly enjoyed themselves during the performance.

We have also had a great term with our transport topic. Naughty bus has inspired the children to do some fabulous writing and has kept us entertained and even made a mess in Mr Bulpitt’s breakfast! We were very lucky to have Ann come in from Greenwich Council. She did a workshop on Road Safety. She taught us all about the ways we can keep safe whilst out and about.

Thank you for all of your continued support and we want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Enjoy the time with your children, we will miss them over the holidays!

WHAT’S NEW FROM RECEPTION

MERRY CHRISTMAS!We have had a wonderful time in Hope Class this Autumn term. We first started reading, ‘Owl Babies,’ which linked nicely into our DT project, construction. The children created their owls by using a variety of construction materials, such as: card, cupcake cases, feathers and tissue paper. ‘The Gingerbread Man,’ was the second book Hope class read this half term and around this topic we’ve been colour mixing (to create orange), creating salt dough gingerbread men, counting gingerbread men buttons, looking at 2D shapes and size ordering decorations. The home corner was transformed into Santa’s Workshop and the children were able to role-play Santa’s little helpers.

The class have also been working and practicing very hard to learn their nativity songs for their nativity performance this half term. The children were very excited to perform in front of the adults and we were very proud of how well the children did. They were SHINING stars!

On behalf of the team in Hope Class, we want to say well done to all the children and a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

WHAT’S NEW FROM HOPE CLASS

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DOLLY THE DOGYear 1 have really been enjoying their maths sessions this half term with lots of practical tasks involving shape, measure and addition. We have been on a 2D and 3D shape hunt around the school and investigated the properties of a range of shapes.

We were very lucky to have a visit from Miss Day’s dog when the vet came to school. The vet gave Dolly, the dog, an examination and showed us how to look after our pets and talked to us about why it is important.

We have also been learning about the human body and the five senses. We have had lots of fun taking part in different tasks involving the senses such as taste and smell tests, even if they didn’t taste or smell too nice!

We loved learning all about Elizabeth I and have been very keen to share gruesome facts about different English monarchs with all of our classmates! We became budding artists and had our own classroom gallery of portraits of Queen Elizabeth II. We loved building our skills in the sketch book and experimenting with portrait drawing and water colour paints. We are very proud of our finished products!

WHAT’S NEW FROM YEAR 1

SOUTHWARK CATHEDRALYear 2 have been working really hard this half term and have had lots of fun learning about Jesus being the ‘Light of the World’ in RE. We even had the opportunity to go to Southwark Cathedral. We were able to listen to the Nativity story, have a tour of the Cathedral and make our very own candles! It was lots of fun. We also thank all of our family members and friends who came to watch us in our Nativity. We put lots of hard work into it and we hope you enjoyed it! We wish you all a very lovely Christmas.

WHAT’S NEW FROM YEAR 2

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CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

The children have had an exciting and eventful term packed full of opportunities for learning in different ways. A highlight of the term was learning through the book ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’ The children thoroughly enjoyed exploring the characters from the book and produced fantastic diary entries and character descriptions.

This linked to our topic this term ‘The Mayans’ where the children enjoyed learning and writing instructions about how the Mayans created chocolate and they created their own incredible Mayan inspired masks.

A massive highlight of the term was ‘Chocolate Day’ and we would like to thank parents for their support in helping the children create their amazing chocolate creations.

We would like to wish children and parents a lovely Christmas and New Year! Many thanks for your continued support.

The Year 3 Team

WHAT’S NEW FROM YEAR 3

BULLY BEATThis half term, Year 4 had a very special visitor to their class. We were visited by Nathan Timothy (from The Nathan Timothy Foundation) and were asked to create a brand new song all about anti-bullying.

We had to create our own lyrics and either sing or rap them into a microphone. As a year group, we were able to create our very own song which included every child’s voice. We loved working with bullybeat and look forward to creating our own songs in class.

If you would like to hear our song it can be found on apple podcasts under bully beat’s page.

WHAT’S NEW FROM YEAR 4

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LITERACYThis half term, Year 5 have been studying Oliver Twist in Literacy. We started out by writing action sequences for the moments just after Oliver asks for more, and he is chased around the dining hall. After meeting Fagin and the Artful Dodger, we imagined how Oliver would describe his first impressions of Fagin. Finally, we became news reporters, reporting from the scene of the brutal murder of Miss Nancy Brown.

We interviewed an eye-witness and collected evidence from the crime scene, creating our evidence boards. We held a news conference to hear the opinions of the police and other eye-witnesses. In WG Grace class, a parent who is a journalist came and talked to us about what inspires her to write and how important the edit and improve process is. We now await the latest edition of the London Gazette which will include the newspaper articles we have written on this tragic event.

WHAT’S NEW FROM YEAR 5

FRENCH TRIPYear 6 had a magnifique time in Arras!

All the children were extremely excited travelling to France by Eurostar. Our first stop was at the Canadian National Vimy War memorial, dedicated to the memory of Canadian soldiers killed during WW1 and the children took great interest in learning about the history of this poignant site. Later we visited the Wellington Tunnels on the outskirts of Arras town, where we explored the underground network which support a community of almost 24000 men in the build up to the battle of Arras in April 1917. Finally we thoroughly enjoyed using our French to shop in the beautiful Christmas market.

A huge MERCI to Mrs Edwards for organising such a wonderful educational and enriching day!

Joyeux Noël!

WHAT’S NEW FROM YEAR 6

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SCHOOL TERM DATES 2018 / 2019Please note that we use the local authorities published term dates as a guide to our term dates. Below are the dates for the next academic year:

AUTUMN TERM

(Term one)Christmas and New Year holiday Monday 24 December 2018 to Friday 4 January 2019.SPRING TERM

(Term three)Monday 7 January to Friday 15 February 2019.

STAFF INSET DAYS: Friday 1 February 2019

Half-term holiday Monday 18 February to Friday 22 February 2019.

(Term four)Monday 25 February to Friday 5 April 2019.Easter holidayMonday 8 April to Monday 22 April 2019.SUMMER TERM

(Term five)Tuesday 23 April to Thursday 23 May (except May Day bank holiday on 6 May).

STAFF INSET DAYS: Friday 24 May 2019

Half-term holiday Monday 27 May to Friday 31 May 2019 (spring bank holiday on 27 May).

(Term six)Monday 3 June to Tuesday 23 July 2019.